Northrop Grumman will begin production WSN-12 Inertial Navigator for most U.S. combatant vessels

Northrop Grumman has announced on 5 September that the company successfully completed the Critical Design Review (CDR) phase of the U.S. Navy’s WSN-12 Inertial Sensor Module and will begin production of ten pre-production units.

The WSN-12 is poised to become the primary shipboard inertial navigation system for most U.S. combatant vessels and will be installed on all vessels of the DDG, CG, CVN and SSN classes. The system brings new technology and improved accuracy to these platforms.

The Inertial Sensor Module is a primary subsystem of the WSN-12, and includes the inertial sensors, electromechanical equipment supporting them and software to compute the navigation solution. The shipboard inertial navigation system measures, computes and distributes navigation data to all users, including attitude, velocity and position information.

“Northrop Grumman has met or exceeded objectives in all aspects of the sensor design and was able to demonstrate performance in the testing of the engineering development models,” said Captain Jon Garcia, NAVSEA IWS6.0.“We are looking forward to successful integration testing this year and receiving the sensor pre-production units next year.”

“Completion of this CDR keeps this program on track to deliver exceptional navigation accuracy to the fleet,” said Todd Leavitt, vice president, maritime systems, Northrop Grumman. “The WSN-12 Inertial Sensor Module provides technology that enables improvements to navigation accuracy and reliability, benefiting all systems that depend upon it.”